But there is a reason these calm and moderate and private Christians don't make the news, why, despite their enormous numbers, they are not setting the cultural agenda like some sort of sanctimonious meth-addled monkey (hi, Sen. Santorum!) right now.

It's because they are not organized. They are not a club. They do not have a unified attack agenda. They do not have pamphlets or advertising budgets or congressional lobbyists or the complaint line of every TV network and program except Fox News and "The 700 Club" on speed dial.

They do not call themselves the Parent's Television Council or the Right to Life Marauders or the Family Values Coalition or some other dumbly misleading and patently bogus moniker. They are not attempting to cram already gutted public school textbooks with imbecilic "Intelligent Design" BS, nor are they writing uptight letters to the FCC en masse or ranting about nipples or dildos or low-cut jeans on teenage girls while at the same exact moment repressing their own gay fantasies and kiddie-porn collections.

They understand that our children are at much higher risk of moral and spiritual damage from, say, decimated school budgets and violent presidential warmongering and noxious Kraft Lunchables than they could ever be from Janet Jackson or Abercrombie and Fitch or healthy teen sex.

Most spiritually healthy Christians are simply living their lives, praying deeply, carefully, privately, seeing the divine all around them and choosing Jesus' teachings as the best moral compass, especially the parts about love and healing and empathy and acceptance and turning the other cheek, about how God is not some sneering angry bearded puppeteer but rather a radiant energy force inside everyone and every living thing, always, just waiting for you to tap into it. You know, just like every other religion in existence.

Hey Charlie.I'm late responding to this. I don't get around much anymore, so I am just bumping through, here and there.

Glancing through your post, this verse comes to mind;

"This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we commanded you before. As a result, people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others to meet your financial needs." 1Thess 4:11,12